Appetizers
Intimidation special
$Free
One cold hard stare from a bright green cartoon tree frog, hovering over the entrance—sitting atop glowing red letters spelling out “Rainforest Cafe”
You learn the frog is called Cha! Cha! Name so nice you have to say it twice
Mozz Stix w/ a side of monkey
Food: $11.99, sights & sounds: $Free
Animatronic apes slamming fists robotically, frantically, against their chest plates hollering, screaming to be freed from their performative prisons
A piranha ate my pretzel
$10.99
Gooey cheesy sauce in a plastic cup—ironic when you’re sitting next to an intricate sparkling tube system filled with tropical fish. An aquatic nightmare, sure, but does wonders for business. These tank-side tables get snatched up, quick!
Mains
Holy crap—I mean, cow, I mean, what are these prices?
$WTF?
Your dad says, wondering how on earth a likely once-frozen, never-fresh pizza could possibly cost $23.99 and how people could actually buy it just because it’s called Pauly Python’s Powerhouse Pepperoni Pizza and it’s served up on a platter with Cha! Cha!’s face on it (wouldn’t Pauly Python eat Cha! Cha! in the wild?)
Something else not worth the price but you’re not paying for food or quality
$Once-in-a-lifetime-experience
You’re paying for ambiance, for clashing thunderstorms, a mini-seizure (epileptics, beware), a blinking, talking face in a tree made from your nightmares, a gift shop inside a restaurant.
Dessert
Sparkling Volcano
$14.99
Chocolate cake piled high with ice cream, whipped cream, all sorts of sugar-filled toppings your dentist can’t wait to find out you ate. To top it off though, there’s a sparkler—yes, an actual sparkler—lit and crackling making its way toward you with a chorus of “happy happy birthday”s
Embarrassment from the sparkling volcano
$Free
Thanks, dad, who swore he wouldn’t call attention to your birthday, which he knows you hate but loves his own recognition and attention even more—through tears, close your eyes, make a wish so the waiters will go away, retreat to the kitchen or whatever far off place they’ve come from with this dessert monstrosity and when they’re gone, get up & run—
out of the dining room, weaving through the jungle, the ocean, the starry night skies, until the fluorescence of the mall welcomes you back with its gentle caress. Lock eyes with Cha! Cha! as you recover from dinner, taking heaving breaths while the teenage host dressed like a safari leader looks at you, then their phone, bored
“Cha! Cha!” you yell, and you swear you can feel its eyes move to meet your gaze. Through tears tell it how you’ll never come back to this godforsaken place and you’ll never have a stupid birthday again and maybe he says “ribbit” or maybe he doesn’t but you’ve said your peace and you’ve caught your breath so you can wipe your tears and go back in.
Kailee Haong Ellis is a queer writer and editor. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. Growing up, she was always too chicken to hold the slimy neighborhood frogs from the woods behind their house, so she’d make her little sister do it.